This grant provides funds to enhance graduate student participation in the 11th North American Masonry Conference (NAMC) of The Masonry Society (TMS). The 11th NAMC brings together experts from diverse fields with a strong interest in masonry structures. One of the focal points of the 11th NAMC is the investigation of new applications of mechanics in enabling future advances in masonry technology. Academics, industry representatives and students from many fields (civil engineering, engineering mechanics, architecture and others) have committed to presenting research results on a wide range of topics relayed to masonry structures and mechanics.
These funds will allow the conference organizers to attract graduate students to the 11th NAMC to present their work. The students will present their work to an international audience of academics and researchers, they will learn about the most recent advances in the field of masonry structures, and they will be inspired to continue working in and contributing to the field. The conference participation will also facilitate cross-pollination between the disparate fields that comprise the masonry research community, as well as between the US research community with those in other countries. The 11th NAMC forum will help foster an environment that allows for the anticipation of new challenges that engineers face with regards to masonry structures, thereby facilitating professional growth to ensure that the challenges are met.
The funds granted by the NSF for this activity were intended for the purpose of providing travel support for graduate students to participate as speakers and authors in the 11th North American Masonry Conference (11NAMC) of The Masonry Society (TMS). The 11NAMC, which was held at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis June 5-8, drew over 180 attendees from 26 countries to disseminate information on the structural mechanics, design, behavior, construction and evaluation of masonry structures. Approximately 110 papers and posters were presented, in addition to a keynote address and 3 plenary addresses. The conference also included 4 educational seminars. Proceedings from the conference include 129 technical papers that were peer-reviewed in accordance with the policies and standards of the TMS Journal, and are available in both electronic (CD-ROM) and printed forms. Five (5) graduate students funded by this award prepared technical papers and made oral presentations at the 11NAMC. Initially, approximately twenty (20) paper abstracts were identified which included graduate students as authors, from which ten (10) were selected competitively on the basis of the quality of the paper abstracts. However, the grant was not approved until after the beginning of the conference, and the number of potential recipients diminished for several reasons. Some students did not submit a technical paper in view of the uncertainty in securing travel funds, while other students submitted a paper but did not attend the conference. For the latter case, most selected a substitute speaker (e.g., their advisors) to deliver the presentation. Finally, in some cases, the students were able to secure funds from other sources and attended the conference. Five graduate students were eventually funded to participate in the 11NAMC as presenting authors of papers on their research. It provided these students the opportunity to prepare a conference paper that was peer-reviewed, prepare a technical presentation and deliver to an audience of international experts. The students were able to meet with peers at other universities in the US and other countries in similar fields. The students had the first-hand opportunity to experience the conduct of an international conference of experts in their field. Furthermore, the students were able to establish contacts with peers in the US and elsewhere to discuss topics of interest, thus enhancing and increasing the opportunity for cross-pollination of ideas and establishment of professional networks. In the principal disciplines of the project, which include structural engineering, structural mechanics and engineering design, the graduate student papers addressed the following topics in their papers: Lateral Force Distributions for Hybrid Masonry Panels; Computational Modeling of Hybrid Masonry Systems; Experimental Evaluation of Seismic Performance for Hybrid Masonry; Limit-Analysis for Seismic Design of Reinforced Masonry Walls; and Fragility Curves for In-Plane Seismic Performance of Reinforced Masonry Walls. The funding enabled professional development of five graduate students relative to participating in professional conferences, establishing contacts and networks with other researchers, and cross-pollination of ideas. Among the outcomes of this activity were the student papers included as part of the printed proceedings (Proceedings of the 11th North American Masonry Conference: Transforming Traditions, A.E. Schultz, J.S. Weeks, O. Bigelow, J.R. Bean Popehn, ed., The Masonry Society, 2011, 1542 pp., ISBN: 1-929081-37-5), the electronic proceedings (Proceedings of the 11th North American Masonry Conference: Transforming Traditions, A.E. Schultz, J.S. Weeks, O. Bigelow, J.R. Bean Popehn, ed., The Masonry Society, 2011, ISBN: 1-929081-38-3), as well as the abstracts of their papers in the book of abstracts (Book of Abstracts for the 11th North American Masonry Conference: Transforming Traditions, A.E. Schultz, J.S. Weeks, O. Bigelow, J.R. Bean Popehn, ed., The Masonry Society, 2011, ISBN: 1-929081-39-1).
